Preoperative clinic: Non-essential cost or catalyst for process efficiency, safety and care outcomes?

As the inevitable consequences of healthcare reform legislations are hitting the bottom line of hospitals, perioperative communities are undergoing continued intense scrutiny for opportunities to improve efficiency, safety and patient centered care. In the current issue of JCA Epstein and colleagues [1] studied the effect of bypassing an anesthesiologist-directed preoperative evaluation clinic on first-case tardiness and turnover times. In their institution, efforts to reduce cost increasingly directed patients away from their anesthesiologist-directed preoperative clinic.

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